-
23849.528642
In contemporary philosophy of physics, there has recently been a renewed interest in the theory of geometric objects—a programme developed originally by geometers such as Schouten, Veblen, and others in the 1920s and 30s. However, as yet, there has been little-to-no systematic investigation into the history of the geometric object concept. I discuss the early development of the geometric object concept, and show that geometers working on the programme in the 1920s and early 1930s had a more expansive conception of geometric objects than that which is found in later presentations— which, unlike the modern conception of geometric objects, included embedded submanifolds such as points, curves, and hypersurfaces. I reconstruct and critically evaluate their arguments for this more expansive geometric object concept, and also locate and assess the transition to the more restrictive modern geometric object concept.
-
23886.528876
On 10th January 2025, I had the privilege of speaking at the launch event of the Radboud Centre for Natural Philosophy (RCNP) at Radboud University, Nijmegen, NL. The prospect was a little intimidating, not only because of the (predictably) illustrious audience, but also (more surprisingly) because my talk was scheduled immediately after a performance composed specifically for the launch event. That performance, titled ‘Big Bang variations’, wove together a story of the birth of a human being with the birth of the Universe itself, i.e. the Big Bang—and featured avant-garde guitar; it was fabulous. Sadly, there was no such guitar accompaniment to my talk. But still, I think the talk was tolerably successful; this is a paper version of it.
-
23988.528891
Emilie Du Chˆ ´ atelet (1706-1749) is perhaps equally well-known for her magnum opus, the Institutions de Physique of 1740, and for her later French translation of and commentary to Newton’s Principia (first published posthumously in 1756, with the corrected edition in 1759). One of the few topics which Du Chˆatelet addresses in detail in both the Institutions de Physique (chapter 15) and the commentary to her translation is Newton’s arguments for his law of gravitation in the Principia. To date, however, no systematic comparison of the two has been undertaken (and very little has been said on either of them separately). I reconstruct and compare these two accounts. This offers a new perspective on Du Chˆatelet’s developing thinking on the justification of Newton’s law of gravitation within the Newtonian system.
-
81661.5289
This paper presents a novel approach: using a digital calculation method for propositional logical reasoning. The paper demonstrates how to discover the primitive numbers and the digital calculation formulas by analyzing the truth tables. Then it illustrates how to calculate and compare the truth values of various expressions by using the digital calculation method. As an enhanced alternative to existing approaches, the proposed method transforms the statement-based or table-based reasoning into number-based reasoning. Thereby, it eliminates the need for using truth tables, and obviates the need for applying theorems, rewriting statements, and changing symbols. It provides a more streamlined solution for a single reasoning, while demonstrating more efficiency for multiple reasonings in long-term use. It is suitable for manual calculation, large-scale computation, AI and automated reasoning.
-
125399.528909
How the semantic significance of numerical discourse gets determined is a metasemantic issue par excellence. At the sub-sentential level, the issue is riddled with difficulties due to the contested metaphysical status of the subject matter of numerical discourse, i.e. numbers and numerical properties and relations. I propose to set those difficulties aside and focus instead on the sentential level, specifically, on obvious affinities between whole numerical and non-numerical sentences and how their significance is determined. From such a perspective, Frege’s 1884 construction of number, while famously mathematically untenable, fares better than other approaches in the philosophy of mathematics. Despite the work’s foundational untenability, it is metasemantically superior to extant alternatives.
-
196924.528917
Recently, several philosophers and physicists have increasingly noticed the hegemony of unitarity in the black hole information loss discourse and are challenging its legitimacy in the face of the measurement problem. They proclaim that embracing non-unitarity solves two paradoxes for the price of one. Though I share their distaste over the philosophical bias, I disagree with their strategy of still privileging certain interpretations of quantum theory. I argue that information-restoring solutions can be interpretation-neutral because the manifestation of non-unitarity in Hawking’s original derivation is unrelated to what’s found in collapse theories or generalized stochastic approaches, thereby decoupling the two puzzles.
-
197019.528924
The so-called Geometric Trinity of Gravity includes General Relativity (GR), based on spacetime curvature; the Teleparallel Equivalent of GR (TEGR), which relies on spacetime torsion; and the Symmetric Teleparallel Equivalent of GR (STEGR), grounded in nonmetricity. Recent studies demonstrate that GR, TEGR, and STEGR are dynamically equivalent, raising questions about the fundamental structure of spacetime, the under-determination of these theories, and whether empirical distinctions among them are possible. The aim of this work is to show that they are equivalent in many features but not exactly in everything. In particular, their relationship with the Equivalence Principle (EP) is different.
-
233539.528933
My response to Gabriele Gava’s Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023) focuses on Kant’s conception of the role of critique in the Critique of Pure Reason. On my account, Gava’s emphasis on the constructive elements of the Critique downplays the critique of former metaphysics elaborated in all three parts of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. After some comments on Kant’s conception of the Critique as a doctrine of method, I support this view by discussing the relation between transcendental philosophy and transcendental critique, Kant’s analysis of the faculties, and his transcendental deduction of space.
-
304821.528944
“Sing, Muse, the rage of Achilles,” the Iliad says at its start. And what enraged Achilles? The fact that Agamemnon took from him a young woman he had captured in battle, who was originally given to him as part of his prize. The disputes at the start of the Iliad aren’t about whether you can take goods and people captured in battle—nobody doubts that. The question is who among the victors gets what. The English language still has more than one word for these goods, including “booty” and “spoils.” Then there’s predation, which comes from the Latin word for these spoils: praeda. The Greeks had the verb ἁρπάζω (harpadzo); in German, the noun is Kriegsbeute.
-
312428.528957
Pursuing a scientific idea is often justified by the promise associated with it. Philosophers of science have proposed a variety of approaches to such promise, including more specific indicators. Economic models in particular emphasise the trade-off between an idea’s benefits and its costs. Taking up this Peirce-inspired idea, we spell out the metaphor of such a cost-benefit analysis of scientific ideas. We show that it fruitfully urges a set of salient meta-methodological questions that accounts of scientific pursuit-worthiness ought to address. In line with such a meta-methodological framework, we articulate and explore an appealing and auspicious concretisation—what we shall dub “the virtue-economic account of pursuit-worthiness”: cognitive benefits and costs of an idea, we suggest, should be characterised in terms of an idea’s theoretical virtues, such as empirical adequacy, explanatory power, or coherence. Assessments of pursuit-worthiness are deliberative judgements in which scientifically competent evaluators weigh and compare the prospects of such virtues, subject to certain rationality constraints that ensure historical and contemporary scientific circumspection, coherence and systematicity. The virtue-economic account, we show, sheds new light on the normativity of scientific pursuit, methodological pluralism in science, and the rationality of historical science.
-
323023.528967
In November, I chided Austrian economists for neglecting the John Haltiwanger’s empirical work on creative destruction:
Around 2000, I discovered that John Haltiwanger, a very mainstream economist, had a pile of empirical evidence vindicating the importance of Schumpeterian creative destruction. …
-
326933.528979
The other day on LinkedIn the following message (written by a political philosopher whose identity is irrelevant here) came into my feed:
It caught my attention because it indirectly relates to a key question that all societies, especially liberal societies, have to answer: up to which point are we not accountable to others for what we do? …
-
370120.52899
Erwin Schrödinger, one of the founding fathers of quantum theory, remained throughout his life a critic of the “statistical” interpretation of quantum mechanics championed by Born, Heisenberg, and Bohr and accepted by almost all of his contemporaries. In particular, his coinage of the term “entanglement” and his famous cat paradox in [Schrödinger, 1935b] were intended to bring out what he saw as fundamental problems of the mainstream position. Together with the paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR) of 1935 [Einstein et al., 1935], which used an entangled state to argue that quantum mechanics cannot be a complete description of physical reality, it has become the foundation of a flourishing field of research in the nature and applications of quantum mechanical entanglement, such as quantum information theory and quantum computation. However, Schrödinger’s worries about entanglement and its implications for the interpretation of quantum theory did not start in 1935. Using his extensive research notes, we will discuss how the emergence of his worries can be dated all the way back to 1926, when quantum theory was first developed. Also based on his research notes and correspondence, we can show that in contrast to the received view among historians and philosophers of quantum theory, that Schrödinger’s 1935 paper was merely responding to the EPR publication, he actually struggled with the essential content of this argument four years earlier.
-
370141.528997
Two views on the direction of time can be distinguished—primitivism and nonprimitivism. According to the former, time’s direction is an in-built, fundamental property of the physical world. According to the latter, time’s direction is a derivative property of a fundamentally directionless reality. In the literature, non-primitivism has been widely supported since most (if not all) our fundamental dynamical laws are time-reversal invariant. In this paper, I offer a way out to the primitivist. I argue that we do have good grounds to support a primitive direction of time in the quantum realm. The rationale depends on exploiting the metaphysical and dynamical underdetermination of quantum theories to make a case in favor of primitivism. In particular, primitivism can be grounded in spontaneous collapse theories (e.g., GRW and CSL). The specific sense in which these theories capture a primitive direction of time is that, when the ontology of the theory is seriously taken into account, it does not remain invariant under time reversal. In taking GRW with a matter-density field (GRWm), I will argue that primitivism about the direction of time can be defended in the quantum case.
-
485538.529004
The paper makes a novel case to vindicate social sciences as substantially a priori against the mainstream view that rejects apriorism as unscientific. After a brief review of the state of the art and the open options to defend a science that is a priori, we lay out a methodological dualism according to which human action is not accessible to the methods of empirical science but requires a normative stance to identify its subject matter as the expression of intentional action. Against this background, we then bring the apriorism of Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe together with the normative turn in philosophy established by the Pittsburgh School of Philosophy, resulting in normative apriorism as a firmly established scientific method that is specific to the social sciences. In brief, the strategy thus is to bring in normativity as a characteristic trait of human action in order to show why a science of human action has to be a priori in order to capture its subject.
-
485562.529011
Symmetry fundamentalism claims that symmetries should be taken metaphysically seriously as part of the fundamental ontology. The main aim of this paper is to bring some novel objections against this view. I make two points. The first places symmetry fundamentalism within a broader network of philosophical commitments. I claim that symmetry fundamentalism entails idealization realism which, in turn, entails the reification of further theoretical structures. This might lead to an overloaded ontology as well as open the way to criticisms from metaphysical frameworks that reject such reifications. The second point contrasts symmetry fundamentalism with the now common view that regards symmetries as stipulations guiding empirical research and theory construction. I claim that both views clash each other and cannot be held together. I finish the paper with a more positive prospect that will be developed in future work—symmetry deflationism.
-
485585.529018
In this paper, I critically assess two recent proposals for an interpretation-independent understanding of non-relativistic quantum mechanics: the overlap strategy (Fraser & Vickers, 2022) and the textbook account (Egg, 2021). My argument has three steps. I first argue that they presume a Quinean-Carnapian meta-ontological framework that yields flat, structureless ontologies. Second, such ontologies are unable to solve the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. Finally, only structured ontologies are capable of solving the problems that quantum ontologists want to solve. But they require some dose of speculation. In the end, I defend the conservative way to do quantum ontology, which is (and must be) speculative and non-neutral.
-
485605.529024
Symmetry-based inferences have permeated many discussions in philosophy of physics and metaphysics of science. It is claimed that symmetries in our physical theories would allow us to draw metaphysical conclusions about the world, a view that I call ‘symmetry inferentialism’. This paper is critical to this view. I claim that (a) it assumes a philosophically questionable characterization of the relevant validity domain of physical symmetries, and (b) it overlooks a distinction between two opposing ways through which relevant physical symmetries become established. My conclusion is that symmetry inferentialism loses persuasive force when these two points are taken into consideration.
-
597839.529031
A farmer with a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage must cross a river by boat. The boat can carry only the farmer and a single item. If left unattended together, the wolf would eat the goat, or the goat would eat the cabbage. …
-
648572.529038
The Cosmic Microwave Background: His- torical and Philosophical Lessons, by Slobodan Perović and Milan M. Ćirković.
-
658529.529046
Traditional attempts to understanding inductive reasoning in science have typically involved analyzing language, focusing on statements or propositions. However, recent arguments suggest that this approach misconceives induction, prompting the need for a new perspective. This study offers a fresh view on induction by integrating William Whewell's theory of induction, which distinguishes two forms of reasoning: interpretation and representation. This perspective suggests that induction can be seen as a reasoning process based on semantic and pragmatic models rather than statements or propositions.
-
658545.529054
The label French Conventionalism has generally been used to refer to Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem, who were seen as having the same view. Current scholarship presents a more complex picture of French philosophy of science in the early twentieth century. There are many conflicting interpretations of both Poincaré and Duhem, but at least we have learned that they do not have the same viewpoint. However, Duhem and Poincaré do share the idea that in some areas of science, we make a choice that is not empirically determinable. We can certainly say that there was an important set of issues being debated in French philosophy of science in the very early twentieth century and that these debates centered on the views of Poincaré and Duhem, no matter what label we use.
-
706733.529061
Sam: Let’s dive right in, the book’s main ideas don’t take long to explain. Iambic pentameter, the dominant verse form used by Shakespeare, permits a great deal of rhythmic flexibility; and that flexibility can be exploited for expressive purposes. …
-
831483.529068
The question of the reduction of chemistry to quantum mechanics has been inextricably linked with the development of the philosophy of chemistry since the field began to develop in the early 1990s. In the present chapter I would like to describe how my own views on the subject have developed over a period of roughly 30 years. A good place to begin might be the frequently cited reductionist dictum that was penned in 1929 by Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics.
-
831508.529074
This article begins by examining a recent claim by Brad Wray that the discovery of atomic number and isotopy constitutes a scientific revolution in the sense of the later writings of Thomas Kuhn. I argue that although Kuhn’s criteria may apply to the change from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican model of the universe, they do not apply in the above chemical or atomic case. I also examine the wider issue of Kuhn’s turning away from internal scientific issues to a consideration of lexical issues. I conclude, as others have done before me, that this may have been a wrong turn in view of the emphasis being placed on questions of sense rather than reference.
-
831529.529086
The article begins with a response to a recent contribution by Jensen, in which he has criticized several aspects of the use of triads of elements, including Döbereiner’s original introduction of the concept and the modern use of atomic number triads by some authors including myself. Such triads are groups of three elements, one of which has approximately the average atomic weight of the other two elements, as well as having intermediate chemical reactivity. I also examine Jensen’s attempted reconstruction Mendeleev’s use of triads in predicting the atomic weights of three hitherto unknown elements, that were subsequently named gallium, germanium and scandium. The present article then considers the use of atomic number triads, in conjunction with the phenomenon of first member anomaly, in order to offer support for Janet’s left-step periodic table, in which helium is relocated into group 2 of the table. Such a table features triads in which the 2nd and third elements of each group, without fail, fall into periods of equal length, a feature that is absent in the conventional 18-column or the conventional 32-column table. The dual sense of the term element, which is the source of much discussion in the philosophy of chemistry, is alluded to in further support of such a relocation of helium that may at first appear to contradict chemical intuition.
-
889218.529093
This paper addresses some apparent philosophical tensions between realism and enactiv-ism by means of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. Enactivism’s Mind-Life Continuity thesis has been taken to commit it to some form of anti-realist ‘world-construction’ which has been considered controversial. Accordingly, a new realist enactivism is proposed by Zahidi (Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 13(3), 461–475, 2014), drawing on Ian Hacking’s ‘entity realism’, which places subjects in worlds comprised of the things that they can successfully manipulate. We review this attempt, and argue that whilst Zahidi rightly urges enactivists towards ‘internal realism’, he cannot sustain a non-negotiable aspect of realism that is crucial for scientific progress – the claim that multiple subjects inhabit the same world. We explore Peirce’s pragmatism as an alternative solution, foregrounding his distinction between existence and reality, and his inquiry-based account of cognition. These theoretical innovations, we argue, fruitfully generalize Zahidi’s manipulation-based enactivist realism to a richer, inquiry-based enactivist realism. We explore how this realism’s pan-species monism about truth encourages and supports the investigation of non-human animal cognition, and conclude by considering some implications of our discussion for long-standing realism debates within pragmatism.
-
889239.529101
Mainstream philosophy has seen a recent flowering in discussions of intellectualism which revisits Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between ‘knowing how’ and ‘knowing that’, and challenges his argument that the former cannot be reduced to the latter. These debates so far appear not to have engaged with pragmatist philosophy in any substantial way, which is curious as the relation between theory and practice is one of pragmatism’s main themes. Accordingly, this paper examines the contemporary debate in the light of Charles Peirce’s habit-based epistemology. We argue both that knowing-that can be understood as a particularly sophisticated form of knowing-how, and that all bodily competencies—if sufficiently deliberately developed—can be analysed as instantiating propositional structure broadly conceived. In this way, intellectualism and anti-intellectualism are seen to be not opposed, and both true, although Peirce’s original naturalistic account of propositional structure does lead him to reject what we shall call ‘linguistic intellectualism’.
-
889263.529112
Jack Spencer and Ian Wells have recently argued that Causal Decision Theory faces special difficulty in cases of decision-instability where a play-it-safe option is present. They argue that CDT recommends taking a risky option, while the rational thing to do is to play it safe. In this paper I will show that CDT only recommends the risky option if we assume risk neutrality—a risk-averse CDT can play it safe. This opens two lines of response to Causalists: They can embrace a risk-averse CDT. Or they can reject the intuition to play it safe on the general grounds that risk-aversion is irrational. I will also generalise this argument to several other examples involve decision-instability. Of course, risk-aversion cannot explain all CDT’s problems and I will bolster the case for risk-aversion playing a special role in these cases by showing it cannot help in all such cases.
-
1032228.529127
I recently wrote about how the Parker Solar Probe crossed the Sun’s ‘Alfvén surface’: the surface outside which the outflowing solar wind becomes supersonic. This is already pretty cool—but even better, the ‘sound’ here is not ordinary sound: it consists of vibrations in both the hot electrically conductive plasma of the Sun’s atmosphere and its magnetic field! …